


I Don't Know What It Is

by soiturnonthetelevision



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, District 12, Ficlet, Gen, One Shot, POV Peeta Mellark, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soiturnonthetelevision/pseuds/soiturnonthetelevision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta couldn't remember the last time he'd had such a good day. Though from the eyes of an objective outsider, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about it. The weather was admittedly nice, but not unusual for springtime in District 12. It was more of an internal experience- a phrase he'd decided on about halfway through his lessons. (Math to be exact. He never much cared for math. He was good at it (he was good at every subject) but he'd never been able to get excited about it.) Peeta was simply having one of those days that felt sort of extraordinary for no good reason. He felt alive.</p><p>THG Prequel oneshot, Peeta POV</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Know What It Is

Peeta couldn't remember the last time he'd had such a good day. Though from the eyes of an objective outsider, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about it. The weather was admittedly nice, but not unusual for springtime in District 12. It was more of an internal experience- a phrase he'd decided on about halfway through his lessons. (Math to be exact. He never much cared for math. He was good at it (he was good at every subject) but he'd never been able to get excited about it.) Peeta was simply having one of those days that felt sort of extraordinary for no good reason. He felt alive.

He took a deep breath of the (relatively) fresh air as soon as he stepped outside the school building. He smiled at nothing at all, then laughed at himself, then was grateful he seemed to be alone in the courtyard. His feet grazed the dirt as he made his way towards the gate surrounding the property. (It was generous to call it a gate really. One strong breath of wind and the whole thing would topple over.) It was unusual for him to be so alone. As alone as he often felt inside himself, it seemed like he was constantly surrounded by people. It's not that he minded, he liked being around people, it's just that these moments of solitude were so few and far between.

He'd had wrestling practice after school. Coach had ended the practice early (undeniable proof that today was a good day, Peeta thought to himself) but Peeta had stayed back to help the coach put away the (threadbare and overused) equipment they worked with. Peeta usually volunteered to do this, but other boys often did as well. No one else had today, but this didn't even phase Peeta. He was too busy wondering what he might do with himself between now and when practice was supposed to end. He could go home of course, but an unexpectedly early arrival at home might not be welcome. (Not that there was ever any sure fire way to protect himself from his mother's wrathful hands. Even so, Peeta still tried his best not to provoke her.) As Peeta walked down the hallway to the main doorway to the school he figured he wouldn't make any plans at all beyond slowly wandering home. In time to make dinner of course.

When Peeta passed by the school's sad excuse for a gate he felt something loosen in his chest. That was remarkable in and of itself as he'd never thought of school as a negative place. In fact, it was probably the place he'd felt happiest in his life. He'd always felt safe there, certainly. He supposed that release he'd felt in his chest was related to the fact that he had absolutely nowhere to be at that precise moment.

As he walked away from the gate, Peeta noticed that the trees growing outside the school's property were just beginning to sprout leaves. He thought back to his science class that day and how before the teacher lead into the main lesson (on energy transformation and consumption) he'd briefly talked to the class about the process of photosynthesis. Peeta had never heard about anything like that, and he found himself fascinated. Sometimes Mr. Miller (the science teacher, one of Peeta's favorites) would tell the class little bits of unrelated information before diving into the subject of the day, which almost always related to coal. (It was incredible how much there was to say about a subject so uninspiring, Peeta marveled occasionally.) Peeta always wondered where Mr. Miller had learned about all these topics. (Other topics included genetics, evolution, and, once, a really interesting two minute lecture on cloud formation.) Perhaps he'd once had a teacher like himself? Peeta somehow doubted that was the case. Books, Peeta decided. Mr. Miller must have read books that weren't readily available to people in the rest of the district. That seemed unsurprising as there weren't all that many books available to people in the district. (Peeta had always been a reader, devouring the few books that came his way. He'd inherited that trait from his father.) Peeta lived for these tiny glimpses of a world beyond the district he'd always called home. To be honest, Peeta almost enjoyed the portions of The Hunger Games where glimpses at other districts were allowed. There was so much out there to see and know and do. Hearing about photosynthesis, even for a few seconds, had sparked Peeta's very vivid imagination.

Peeta had been so consumed by the ruminations of his own mind he'd barely noticed that he had wandered into the outskirts of the merchant area. Out here on the edges there were only abandoned buildings. No one had ever explained why this was to him. (Their history class in school focused on the history of Panem, or rather, the history of The Capitol.) Peeta had decided it was because the merchant class had grown smaller in recent years. (The first time he'd had this thought, at age 12, he became worried about the stability of his own family, as it seemed they were constantly barely getting by. But then he'd figured that people always needed bread, and as there weren't any other bakeries in town, they were pretty well settled.)

He wasn't exactly certain of the time as he didn't own a watch, but he thought he still had some moments to spare before he needed to rush home. He strolled over to the ruins of a small square house and settled in the first story window frame. He wondered how long it had been since the window frame had had glass in it. Then a truly startling thought entered his brain- what if this had been the house of Katniss Everdeen's mother? She had once been a part of the merchant class. The thought of Mrs. Everdeen was swiftly overtaken by the thought of Katniss. It was strange to think the stern self-sufficient girl he sometimes saw trading with his father at the back door had any connection to the merchant class. When Peeta didn't have wrestling practice after school, he sometimes saw Katniss on his walk home through the alleyways of this deserted part of town. As soon as he'd spied her (out of the corner of his eye- it always felt like he sensed her more than saw her) he would quickly look away. Even in the smallest of glances he'd always felt as if he was intruding somehow. She was so private. Peeta thought back to Free Time that day, a half an hour about mid-day when everyone was allowed in the field behind the school. He'd walked past Prim, Katniss' younger sister, sitting on the stairs looking slightly frightened. He'd been alarmed until he'd remembered that the reaping was tomorrow. It was probably her first year. After he'd realized that, Peeta thought it was a wonder she didn't look more scared.

Peeta pushed off the brick wall and started to make his way towards home. He would probably be early, but the memory of the reaping seemed to bring his somewhat extraordinary day to an abrupt halt. That was probably the strangest thing about the whole day- that until this moment, the thought of the reaping hadn't prevented any of the positive emotions he'd been feeling. He supposed it was because he kept reminding himself that for the first time his brother Ave was no longer eligible. (He'd never been all that close to Ave, or to anyone in his family, but it was still a tremendous relief to no longer have to fear for his brother's life.) Now it was only him and Kell, and Kell only had one year left. It was still the reaping though. And as much as Peeta tried to tell himself that, logically, the odds actually were in his favor as he'd never had to take tesserae, he couldn't shake the knowledge that his name would still be on a slip of paper in that cold glass bowl tomorrow. There was no denying that.

He shook his head a little as he walked, finally entering the merchant district proper. He could see a number of people walking around now (his moment of solitude was over, he unconsciously noted) and wasn't far from home himself. He always tried to forget about The Hunger Games when they weren't happening. (Then they were impossible to ignore.) But as he'd gotten older, he'd felt sparks of anger at their injustice. (Not dissimilar to the flickers of anger he sometimes felt towards his mother and the rest of his family as an extension.) He couldn't get over the logical injustice of it all- there was no justifiable reason why twenty three children were sent to their deaths every year. And yet the thing that made him truly furious was he wasn't able to see how it would ever stop. The people of The Capitol wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Peeta wished it would stop. He'd wished it every day he'd woken up and had to attend the reaping. He'd wished it a lot more days besides that too. And yet he felt powerless. That wasn't a new emotion for Peeta, but it never stopped smarting.

There was a strange sad poetry, he thought, in finally arriving back home at the thought of powerlessness. He let out an exhale of breath (almost a laugh) before deeply inhaling and walking up the stairs to his back porch. (They always used the backdoor to enter their house as the front door was the entrance to the bakery.) He inhaled the scent of baking bread, a scent far more welcoming than the building it emitted from. Peeta stopped for no good reason before opening the back door. For a moment he laid his hands on the worn wood of the door, taking in its soft, worn-down texture. He was taking notice today, he finally decided. That's what had made the day so different. He smiled a little to himself before opening the door, sure to hide the grin before the door was closed behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Something's Coming" from West Side Story. This is my first (posted) piece of fanfic (ah!!). Thanks for reading!
> 
> Come hang out with me on tumblr so we can wail together about the impending end of THG movies: http://soiturnonthetelevision.tumblr.com


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